Русский
Russia’s SIBUR, a major integrated petrochemicals company, is finalizing tests of experimental tires made with synthetic rubber instead of natural rubber in collaboration with its partners and plans to present the results in 2025.
Daria Borisova, SIBUR’s Managing Director for Development and Innovation, said that preliminary results from bench, test site and durability tests confirm that the experimental tires are comparable in performance to standard reference models. She stated that “A total of about 300 prototype tires are currently undergoing testing. We are continuing work across the full range of passenger and commercial vehicle tyres.”
The company is simultaneously developing its own rubber compound formulations and advanced grades of rubber for the tyre industry. Pilot batches produced at the facility are undergoing homologation with partners.
“We have created and tested approximately 20 formulations for different parts of the tyre (the sidewall and the tread), and each part has specific requirements and characteristics. Our task is to identify the formulations that provide the necessary functional and physical-mechanical properties to ensure effective substitution and required functionality” Borisova said.
SIBUR has been working with other tyre manufacturers to replace natural rubber from the Asia-Pacific region with synthetic isoprene rubber in the formulations of various types of tyres. Natural rubber accounts for approximately 25% of all raw materials used in tyre production. SIBUR Executive Director Pavel Lyakhovich has stated that “We expect that we can potentially replace up to around 80% of natural rubber imports to Russia.”
This policy fits in with Russia’s State Policy to 2030 which has concentrated on recycling, and renewing materials and on developing domestic production to reduce reliance on global imports impacting thousands of product categories in efforts to make the Russian economy and production increasingly self-sufficient.
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